May 2009
Bay of Islands Fishing Report
1st May - Unfortunately I'm writing this up a couple of weeks after the trip but if I remember correctly the weather was fine and the water calm as we were fishing in amongst the islands. The snapper still had potential with some measuring up around 34cm. The Kahawai has virtually disappeared but I think we got a John Dory on this trip.
3rd May - This is another report from memory but the weather was okay. The wind and rain were threatening but came to nothing. The swell as we came around Tapeka was pretty large (about 1.5 metres) in the morning but had diminished a lot upon our return. We headed towards the same spot as on the 1st but it wasn't really producing. However the last spot we tried near Tapeka was where the decent fish were biting. We were more than happy with the results with (from memory) Snapper, Trevally and some Kahawai being caught.
Our Next Trip is....
Unknown - Customers are rare, the motels are empty, winter
is here.
16th May - The weather forecast has been cruddy enough to scare off the customers over the past few weeks. We cancelled a couple of Sole Charters as it wasn't worth the risk of going out just in case they got it right for the first time. The forecast was all over the place, it changed every 6 hours and never resembled the forecast they made before it. Weather forecasting, what joke. The biggest joke in this country is the three day forecast. If these so called experts can't even todays forecast correct then why are forecasting for tomorrow and the next day? Anyway we went out with four people today and the weather was beautiful (not forecasted of course). The first place we tried produced lots of snapper but they were all undersized and the bait was getting stripped from the hooks at a furious rate. With no promise of anything bigger coming along, we left and went to the same spot off Tapeka that we'd been on two weeks ago. It turned into the right decision. The fishing was fantastic. We bought home John Dory (2), Kahawai (2), Trevally (4), Terakihi (8) and a few small snapper around 28-30cm. It was good to see the Terakihi, not only were they large, but they are early. The Trevally were large too. Good quality fish and good company. I'm glad we went out today.
|
||||||||||
|
30th May - We'd had lovely weather all week but just when the long weekend arrived the weather was promised to be really bad. I wasn't sure if we'd get out so we left it until the morning before we made a decision. The gale force winds didn't turn up, in fact for most of the trip the wind was only about 5 knots. It rained briefly a couple of times but apart from that it was a nice day. We were only catching a few decent Snapper and a couple of Trevally but the fish were biting all the time so we were kept pretty busy. Unfortunately, when the tide changed the wind came up from the opposite direction. This put us side on to the small swell and it got pretty uncomfortable so we headed in to shelter up the Kerikeri Inlet. The Snapper here were tiny but we started catching Kahawai (and lots of it). Hopefully most people will be trying the new Cajun Kahawai recipe when they get back to their accommodation as it's quick, easy and very tasty.
31st May - Another day that was supposed to have gale force winds. Although we had heavy rain for the first half hour the winds never turned up. We couldn't go back to yesterdays spot because if the wind did turn up we'd be too exposed. We tried four different spots with limited success. All the rain last week muddied up the water and it was still a bit murky so all the Terakihi have disappeared again. Some of the Snapper were so tiny that you could be forgiven for thinking they were goldfish but we did manage six or more keepers, along with a couple of nice Trevally and the biggest Blue Cod we have ever seen around here.